Quality Perspective: The Philosophy Of Quality

Quality is the soul of the Operation Management. The effectiveness of every Operation management (OM) technique that is founded is scaled on basis to its influence on Quality. Various popular OM techniques like Just-In-Time (JIT), Kaizen (Continuous Improvement) and Lean Manufacturing were all graded on its ability improve the overall quality. Techniques that concentrate on improving speed, cost and flexibility in the operation process are in one way or another devoted to improve ‘quality’ as its final goal. All in all, it can be said that Quality is a tree whereby speed, cost and flexibility being its branches.

Basically, my concern in this article is to represent differences in internalizing quality management among the companies that are devoted to Quality Improvement from their heart, soul and mind and the others who are quite amateur in the topic of Quality management. I have discussed about it with my argument below.

First of all, developing a separate Quality-check department in the name of Quality concern has become a popular concept among the layman companies. Moreover, there is a misconception that devoting quality to a separate department is a best way a company can take care about quality in its product. But the question is, does this philosophy internalize the intention to foster quality in the best possible way provided with the available resource? Well, the fewer smart ones answered this question, by discovering the other way that was much better in order to be devoted towards quality improvement. But, believe it or not, it was rather a simplification of the overall process.

Technically, the discovered philosophy was that, “it is the man who produces the product, whom can assure its quality at the best”. In order to implement this philosophy, the smarter companies actually asked each assembly-line worker to ensure the proper functioning and standard of the products they are producing in their respective work cell. In this way, the quality was ensured in every process/step of production rather than to have it totally inspected in detail by the Quality check department after it came out from the final assembly. In short, it was one way to impose quality check “at the main source”. The labors were asked to test every incoming material and the outgoing ones from their corresponding cells to make sure it functioned up to the standard. In other words, the assembly line workers were promoted to be the quality manager of their corresponding cell.

Furthermore, the quality teams were also developed among the assembly-line workers, to consult with the company heads, in developing techniques to produce products in better ways rather than having a separate elite quality concern department (who rarely visit the assembly factory) to look after production design. Ironically, the mantra to impose the Quality management knowledge over the hands-on experience of the assembly line workers (in dealing with the products), came out to be the better way to keep the top-most concern over the quality.

Secondly, the question over the so-called quality internalizing amateur companies is that, do they even put Quality as their foremost priority? Well, the practice of Jidoka (the philosophy to pause the whole assembly line if something goes out of standard in any process) is what proves the foremost devotion of any company towards quality conformance. Jidoka was originally developed by Toyota Motors Co. and is currently practiced by some blue-chip Japanese and Western Companies. The company who practice Jidoka is ready to accept the pain of having the whole assembly-line halted when not conformed till the quality standard. It just shows their motivation to achieve zero-defect or 100% quality. In Jidoka, when the whole assembly-line halts because of quality defects in any part of the production process, the whole crews concentrates in the defect making zone to solve the problem. The priority is alarmed over the defect zone because it is stopping the whole system (and which cannot be re-operated unless it is solved). Well, the concern is to let no defects pass by.

In Contradiction, most of the companies prefer to let the defects pass by over the cells, to have it solved after it appears from the final assembly. Well, this is one root reason for why most of the companies are more involved in fire-fighting rather than Continuous improvement. They don’t understand that the quality problems are to be solved at the roots rather than when it grows up as a large tree.

However, not to be confused, the frequency of practicing Jidoka is actually something to be minimized rather than promoted to ensure zero-defects. This was the main reason for why the concept was being created.

These are the basic difference in concerning the quality management amongst the companies that actually internalize the quality and the ones who pretend to do so. The point is, the companies who want to internalize Quality management from their heart soul and mind ultimately can develop a quality philosophy to gain Quality Improvement at the upmost level as possible.